Bleeding Love Reunion
by NakeBenihime
Summary: Ichigo x Orihime one-shot. Ichigo finally defeats his last enemy in Las Noches, and, although bleeding and tired, still manages to show Orihime just how he truly feels about her. Tanabata themes...


_**Bleeding Love Reunion**_

**(An Ichihime short one-shot reflecting the Tanabata legend… Since I have no intention of writing more of this story, I give permission to anyone interested in writing more of it. Have a good time.)**

"_Ugh—kkuh..."_

"_Hmph—I gotcha...this time...didn't I...?"_

Ichigo clutched his rib cage, heaving deeply, barely standing on his two quivering legs as the blood from his wounded gut gushed out all over his black bankai uniform. He pulled off his already disintegrating Vizard mask from his face, as it dissipated into thin air right above his orange head. The other man near him had already collapsed to the ground directly in front of Aizen's throne in Tower Number Five, his large green eyes dulling from lack of consciousness, as he lay sliced-up and bleeding all over his white Arrancar uniform.

"_Guess you're not...such hot stuff...afterall...are ya, Ulquiorra?"_ taunted Ichigo, slowly, barely able to cough up the words out of his mouth while intensely laboring to breathe. Hunched over, he stabbed his black zanpakuto blade-first into the ground to hold himself up, as he grabbed onto the hilt with both hands. He began to shuffle forward using the sword like an old man walking with a cane.

"Kurosaki-kun!" chirped Orihime from her seated position on the ground, nearby. Ichigo lumbered towards her with his head bowed and sweat dripping from the tip of his sharp nose. His usually spiky orange hair was drenched in so much of his own sweat, it lay matted to his head as if someone had dumped a bucket of water over it.

One at a time, he moved one foot in front of the other, and on one unsure step, nearly took a spill onto the concrete floor. Orihime gasped, her eyes fixated on him as he progressively made his way over to her. With each step he took, her eyes unwittingly bugged more and more out of her head. She was half convinced he wasn't ever going to make it over to her without tumbling to the ground first.

But, she sat there, both her legs together, folded under her rear, patiently awaiting the moment of their reunion. As he arrived closer to her view, she noticed the extensive amount of blood splattered all over his skin and tattered clothes. It made her whimper under her breath to see exactly how mangled for her he had become during this long and drawn-out rescue attempt.

Suddenly, Ichigo dropped to his knees in front of her, dropping Zangetsu onto the ground, startling her into thinking he had finally lost his balance. But, he stood so firmly upon his knees, she knew he had fallen onto them intentionally.

"Inoue..." he said, breathing heavily, his shoulders moving up and down with each inhalation and exhalation. He continued to face the ground, never looking up at her. _"Inoue..."_

"Huh?" she said under her breath, confused. As he stood there motionless, it occurred to her that he wanted her to come to him. She began to scooch, still sitting the same way on the ground, pushing herself forward with her hands, stopping once she arrived right in front of him.

"_Inoue..."_ he whispered, as he reached out with his blood-covered hand to her own folded hands on her lap. Suddenly, he yanked her whole body forward, pulling her up to his face, seizing her shoulders with his hands before she could knock heads with him.

Then, slowly, as if time itself had belayed, he stretched out his long neck, closed his eyes, and gently caught her lips with his, locking onto them. Her entire body jolted with sheer electricity! At first, her eyes lingered wide open for a moment, but, then they fell shut as she relaxed and surrendered to the moment. Her hands floated in mid-air above his cut-up shoulders as if disconnected from her arms, as he moved his hands over her back to embrace her, squeezing her tightly.

To her, it seemed the kiss endured for an eternity, as he smeared his own blood and sweat all over her lips and chin with his lively, passionate tongue. Then, suddenly, she felt his lips begin to pull away from hers—his hands began to loosen and fall away from her back. She popped open her eyes just in time to see his entire body plummeting backwards, crashing to the ground.

"_Kurosaki-kun!"_ she screamed at his collapsed body, his eyes still shut, as he lay limp and immobile. She quickly called out her Shuun'ou and Ayame healers from her hair-pins and created a yellow glowing dome over his form. She sat silently next to the shield, her hand lightly touching it as its powers rushed to restore him to normalcy. She wiped his blood from her face with the back of her hand, staining the white material of her uniform, as she gazed longingly at his pulpy lips—the lips she now knew beyond the casual words he occasionally uttered to her.

"_After all this time, and after all this wondering, I finally know what he really thinks of me..."_ she thought, cracking a tickled grin, as the glow from the lighted shield reflected like two joyfully reunited, happy twinkling stars in her soft, brown eyes...

...The End.


End file.
